The Vintage Teacup Club (12 page)

‘Yes. But she’s a teenager – she’s meant to be, isn’t she? I found her at this awful party the other night.’ She held up her hands in an expression of feigned despair. ‘Ah, if only I could blame the mum and dad, eh?’

‘You’re both good parents, Ali,’ I said. ‘You love Sophie and Holly and they know that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. We try,’ Alison shrugged, looking defeated.

‘Jenny’s right,’ Maggie said. ‘And no parent gets it right all of the time.’

‘I’ll say,’ I said, refilling Alison’s glass, then mine, and topping Maggie’s with sparkling water. Maggie went to take a sip but squealed as the frisbee returned and hit her on the leg. Calmly picking it up and standing to her full height, she launched it in a perfect arc – the disc cut a clean line through the blue sky and landed right back where the boys were calling out apologies.

‘Not bad eh?’ she said, sitting down with a smile and stretching out her legs.

‘What was that you said, Jen?’ Maggie asked.

‘Oh nothing, really.’ I shook my head to dismiss it. ‘Anyway, I’d like to propose a toast. To new friends, a port in the storm.’

Alison and Maggie raised their plastic
cups to that, smiling. ‘To new friends,’ they said in unison.

(June–July)

Dylan looked different. His hair
was shorter now, and
light
brown, with the front swept to the side; his sun-bleached surfer’s curls were gone. Without the long hair, Maggie noticed the clean line of his jaw.

He raised his eyebrows at Maggie’s porridge and blueberries. ‘I guess some things do change,’ he said, smiling, as he tucked into his crisp hash browns. ‘I remember you as a girl who enjoyed her food, Maggie.’

Maggie lifted her coffee cup and brought it to her lips, but the coffee was so hot it nearly scalded her. She put it down and met Dylan’s blue-eyed gaze. He was smiling. She wasn’t.

‘I still do, Dylan. I just enjoy different things now. Anyway, a lot has changed in the
last four years.’ She saw his face fall a little. He looked older, but she had to admit the years hung well on him. There were new creases around his eyes and on his forehead, but his smile was more or less the same. His teeth were whiter maybe, and it looked like the one he’d chipped years ago playing rugby had been fixed, but she could still see the old Dylan there. Was he assessing her appearance in the same way? She felt suddenly self-conscious. Maggie was sitting opposite him in the window seat at Bondi, a cosy, Aussie-run brunch stop in London that had once been their Sunday regular. It was quiet this morning, a Monday with no queue stretching out on to the cobblestoned Islington street like there often was at the weekend.

‘I know some things will have changed, Maggie,’ Dylan said in his smooth drawl, the traces of an American accent softening his London one. ‘And, for what it’s worth, you look fantastic.’

Maggie shrugged off the compliment but she was secretly pleased; she’d spent hours choosing an outfit that would show that she was confident enough –
over their divorce enough
– not to have to power-dress. She’d opted for a white Ghost tunic over leggings, with dark gold sandals, and then put on her favourite amber necklace, the one her grandmother had given her. She wore her hair loose and had opted for a muted lip gloss and smoky eyes. When she’d been with Dylan red lipstick
and nails had been her trade mark. He’d done a double-take when they’d kissed hello.

‘I never thought you’d come,’ Dylan confessed. ‘When you didn’t answer after a week, I thought that was it.’

‘I didn’t want to see you at first, actually,’ Maggie replied. ‘So your instinct was right.’

‘I know I hurt you, Maggie,’ he said then, looking her dead in the eyes.

Maggie looked down, scooping up her blueberries, one, then two, on her spoon. ‘Yes,’ she said, catching his eye again. ‘You did hurt me, Dylan.’ A quiet rage was building but she was determined not to let him see it.

‘Maggie …’

She shook her head. ‘No. You know what, I don’t want to think about it right now. Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about New York, about your studio.’

Dylan shuffled in his seat. ‘Right, yes. It’s a warehouse space I converted together with Luca, another photographer. There’s this incredible exposed brickwork and a great view over Prospect Park. My apartment’s just down the road. Have you ever been to New York, Maggie?’

‘No, I’ve always wanted to, actually. But I never have.’ It was true that Maggie had often pictured herself wandering in Central Park and shopping in Manhattan.

He reached over to touch her hand. ‘I think you’d like it. And I’d love to have you there with me.’

Her stomach contracted at
his words.

‘I miss you,’ he said. He shook his head slightly. ‘I made such a terrible, selfish, stupid mistake.’

Maggie looked over at him. ‘Did you, Dylan?’ she said softly, after a beat. ‘You seem happy. Was leaving me really a mistake?’ She remained calm. ‘Tell me – truthfully – would you undo the last four years if you could?’

‘That’s an impossible question, Maggie,’ Dylan said gently, not taking his eyes off her. Then he ate the last of the bacon on his plate and broke the yolk in his fried egg with a slice of his toast.

An hour later they stepped out of the café into a cool June day. Right away Maggie saw her favourite junk shop, Violet’s, across the cobbled street, and spotted a perfect teacup in the window.

‘Look at that little beauty,’ she exclaimed. ‘We’re going in.’ Dylan looked bemused, but she tugged at his jacket sleeve, pulling him through the shop doorway. She leant into the window display and swept up the silver-rimmed cup, tilting it to read the price – seven pounds. Hmm, she wasn’t going to get quite the haul they had managed on the seaside trip, but this was a quality piece. A young guy dressed and styled like a teddy boy stepped forward to help. ‘Got any more like this?’ she asked. She could tell from his startled expression
that she’d said it a bit more forcefully than she’d meant to.

He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘Sure, I think so, let me check out the back.’

‘What are you up to?’ Dylan asked, looking up from the teacup she was holding to her smiling eyes.

‘A secret mission,’ she said, with a wink. ‘Don’t you worry your pretty head.’

The teddy boy came out from the back room and put four cups on the counter – two were matching, gold and yellow with a pretty buttercup pattern. The other two looked older, 1930s maybe; one was turquoise and white, Ali would adore that, and the other was Chinese blue and white. Miraculously they were all unchipped and had matching saucers in good condition.

‘I’ll give you eighteen for the lot,’ Maggie said. ‘Deal?’

The teddy boy shook his head. ‘The owner would kill me. We’re doing a nice little trade in this sort of thing at the moment. I could give them to you for twenty-five. How about that?’

‘Twenty-two. And that’s my final offer. Come on,’ Maggie said, raising her hands, ‘they’re not even a set.’

The teddy boy gave in, ‘OK, OK. It’s a deal. I’ll wrap them up for you.’

Maggie turned around to see that Dylan had donned a leather cowboy hat and a white feather boa, a long cigarette holder hanging from his lips. She laughed before she could stop herself. He set the cigarette holder down and took the boa off, sweeping it round her shoulders
instead, then took off the hat and plonked it on her head. ‘Perfection,’ Dylan said, that familiar twinkle back in his eye.

Dylan and Maggie left Violet’s and browsed through the other shops. When they stepped out of the last one in the row – Maggie now had a bone china teapot to add to the collection – it had started to rain. Dylan got an umbrella out of his bag, put it up and held it out for Maggie to come under. Tentatively she moved closer to him, the drops were coming so heavy and fast now that her thin white top was in danger of getting soaked through.

Minutes later they were drying off in the Queen of Hearts, the pub where they’d first met and had visited together a hundred times. It was snug inside, with framed movie posters covering the walls and a jukebox in the corner.

‘I know it’s early, but God, you know I’ve missed this pub,’ Dylan said, grabbing them a booth at the back. He motioned for Maggie to sit down on the bench and hung his jacket over a chair. Dylan always used to put Seventies rock on the jukebox, while Maggie would choose soul, jazz and blues, the same tunes she’d liked to sing herself. It had been after one of her gigs here, when she was twenty-six – Jenny’s age, she thought idly – that Dylan had first locked eyes with her as she sang. He had watched her intently throughout the performance and then at the end come up
and given her his number. He’d said the music wasn’t his usual thing but that he’d loved watching her nonetheless. At home alone later that night she had pulled the card out of her purse and flipped it over. On the back Dylan had done a pen drawing of a nightingale.

‘What will you have? I won’t try and guess …’ Dylan said, his London accent back now.

‘I’ll have a cranberry juice,’ Maggie replied. ‘It’s only one o’clock.’

‘Go on,’ he said, tempting her with a wink that sent a shiver across her skin and brought a smile to her lips.

‘OK, if you are, and if you insist. A Campari soda, please. But I’ve got a meeting with a Dutch supplier at three, so I’ll have to head off soon.’

Dylan looked her in the eye and smiled, holding her gaze. ‘So you’re just squeezing me in, are you?’ he asked, pretending to be offended.

She watched him leave for the bar and cursed the old feelings that were coming back. Dylan’s charm was wearing her down, layer by layer, and she was longing to feel his touch, to feel, just for a moment, the intimacy they’d once had. He took his time, chatting to the barman while the drinks were poured. Maggie found her handbag among the pile of vintage purchases, and checked her phone to see that there’d been no emergencies at Bluebelle. It was the first time
she’d left Anna on her own all day and she couldn’t shift the nagging worries that something could have gone wrong. She’d resisted the urge to check in, but found there were two new messages. She read the first, from Anna:

Hi Maggie. Everything is fine, REALLY. The shop is quiet, just a few online orders that I have sorted. Hope London is fab! Anna x

Then she saw one from Alison:

Soo …? How is it all going with D? We are dying here. A and J x

Dylan was back at the table before she could reply to either. She put her phone back in her handbag and looked up, smiling to thank him for the drink.

‘Boy friend?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. She’d meant the texts, but realised her tone had given away far more than that.

On the train back to Charlesworth that evening Maggie watched the rain-drenched fields go by and felt grateful to be warm inside. Her supplier meeting had been successful, she’d managed to negotiate some really good bulk prices, but Dylan was still on her mind. When they’d left the pub he’d walked her to the tube, and her heart had been thudding harder with each
step. When he’d leaned in to kiss her she felt a rush of adrenalin readying her to move away. But then came the coolly formal peck on the cheek and she was left feeling strangely flat. He left to go back to his hotel alone and she watched him walk away; while she hadn’t known what she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.

She got up to go to the tiny train toilets, and it was in there that she heard her phone buzz with a new message.

M, can’t tell you how great it is to see you after all this time. Dx

As her heart leapt the last half-decade of her life dissolved; she read Dylan’s message and felt a glow she hadn’t experienced in all that time. The way Dylan made her laugh, the way he inspired her; she’d looked but hadn’t found anything close to that since they broke up. She looked at herself in the train mirror, her reflection juddering slightly as the carriage moved. Dylan had always loved the defined edges of her collarbone, sometimes he’d photographed just that part of her, with a glimpse of pale shoulder and a curl of red hair. She turned slowly around and held her own gaze in the mirror, letting the strap of her white tunic slide down her arm, revealing more of her back. There it was – she hadn’t seen it for ages, hadn’t looked. On her right
shoulderblade, the outline of a songbird, the sketch Dylan had done for her the night after he first heard her sing, before they were even together. She ran her fingers over
it now; that part of him she’d never been able to let go.